


What is Love?

by regardinglove



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elementary School, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Drabble, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, One Shot, Teacher Castiel, Teacher Dean, Weddings, destiel drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 10:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4056787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regardinglove/pseuds/regardinglove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dean’s students ask him about what it means to be in love, he gets quite the awakening about his own feelings for a certain blue-eyed teacher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What is Love?

“Mr. Winchester? What is love?”

Dean turns towards the voice and grins down at one of his favorite students. “I don’t know, Kevin. What do you think love is?”

The little boy brings his hand up to his face and taps his chin lightly. “I think love is...uh...eating a thousand chocolate bars!” he says. “Oh! And love is when you get that tingly feeling on your neck.”

Dean laughs and then leans down to ruffle Kevin’s hair. “That’s a good thought, bud. Why don’t you write that down for your journal entry today?”

Kevin nods furiously and then grabs his journal from under his desk. He can only laugh when he watches the boy glare at his page in concentration, his hands moving at a snail’s pace as he tries to spell the words correctly.

A second later, Dean feels a tug on his pant leg. He looks down to find little Claire beaming up at him with her large, blue eyes, her own journal tucked beneath her arm.

“Can I write about that too, Mr. Winchester?” she asks as she twists back and forth.

Dean grins. “Yeah, you can write about that too. In fact,” Dean says as he claps to get the class’ attention, “I want everyone to write about what they think love is for their journal entry today. We’ll talk about it in fifteen minutes, okay?”

The muttered round of groans that ring out from the class is to be expected, but Dean just ignores them. They’re too loud at times, and they complain a lot more than Dean’s past students, but he has a special place in his heart for this surly group of fourth graders. They’re wicked smart and are not afraid to ask questions when they don’t understand something, a feat that took him half of the school year to reach with his previous group of students. They’re great, and he also loves the outrageous tales he gets to hear when they do journal entries. He’s positive that today will be no exception.

After the fifteen minutes are up, Dean calls the students over to the reading corner of the classroom. He takes a seat in the rocking chair while the students fight each other for a seat on the bean bag couch. He lets them battle it out for a few seconds before he’s instructing Ruby to stop pulling Meg’s hair, and for Kali and Gabriel to stop egging them on.

“Everyone calm down!” Dean says as he gets up to walk Meg over to the opposite side of the circle. “If you can’t share the couch then I’ll get rid of it!”

“Sorry, Mr. Winchester,” the class says in unison, and Dean just sighs before he takes his place in the rocking chair.

“Now, today you were asked to write about what you think love is. Who wants to start?”

Hands fly up immediately, and Dean grabs his infamous answer ball from under his chair. After glancing around the room, Dean tosses the ball to Krissy first, who smiles widely when she catches it.

“I wrote that love is that feeling you get when you eat a big piece of cake!” she says excitedly as she rolls the ball in her hands. “And it’s that feeling you get when the cafeteria lady lets you go to recess early!”

The class laughs at her answer, and then Dean instructs her to pass it on to the next person. He has to hold back a groan when Krissy passes it to Gabriel. _This is going to be good_ , Dean thinks.

Gabriel smiles like the Cheshire cat when the ball is in his grasp, then he clears his throat before responding.

“Love is when you prank someone really good,” Gabriel says as he glances at Meg. “It’s what I felt when I spat in Meg’s drink at lunch today!”

“Ew!” Meg squeals from across the room. “Mr. Winchester! Tell Gabe that he can’t do that!”

“Gabe, that’s gross. C’mon, man,” Dean says as he shakes his head, but he expects nothing less from Gabriel. “It looks like Claire wants to answer; give the ball to her.”

Gabriel laughs, then follows instructions and throws the ball to Claire across the room. Her thousand watt smile lights up when she gets the ball in her hands, then she shyly turns her eyes to the ground as she speaks.

“I think love is when two people really really really like each other,” Claire practically whispers. “Like how Mr. Winchester and Mr. Novak like each other.”

Dean jumps when the class rings out a chorus of ‘ooooohs’. He doesn’t have a clue of how to respond to her words. She thinks that he’s in love with Cas? Why? Sure, Claire sees them together more than the other students because Cas is her uncle, but what would they have done around her that would’ve even suggested that they were in love?

“Okay, everyone cut it out,” Dean says after the class breaks into giggles. “Mr. Novak and I are best friends, but we’re not in love.”

Kali raises her hand from the front row.

“Yes, Kali?”

“But can’t love be between friends?” she asks as her nose crunches up in confusion. “I love Gabe, but I don’t wanna marry him. That’s gross,” she says with a laugh.

Dean grips the armrests of the chair and chooses his words carefully. “Yes, friends can love one another of course, but I think Claire was talking about  _romantic_  love.”

The class looks back at him dumbfoundedly, so Dean just leans back in the chair and thinks of a way to explain it.

“Romantic love is...the feeling of butterflies in your stomach when you see them from across a room, y’know?”

 _Like the time you saw Cas unexpectedly at the grocery store and your gut basically did a backflip_ , his mind thinks.

“Or,” Dean continues, “it’s like listening to your favorite song and wishing that other person was there with you to experience it.”

_Like the time you went to that Van Halen cover band concert and you wished Cas was there to hear them?_

Dean feels the light sweat begin to dew on the back of his neck. “Or! Or...it’s when you put that person’s needs before your own.”

_Like the time when Cas was sick and you stayed back with him instead of going to visit Sam for the weekend?_

“It’s-,” Dean begins, but suddenly everything hits him like a freight train. Maybe Claire wasn’t as far off as he thought.

_Well, shit._

“Uh...everyone go back to your desk and work on your book reports. Claire, tell Mrs. Jones to come watch the class for a bit. I’ll be right back!”

And then with that, Dean runs out of the room with one thought in mind.

He needs to find Cas.

Cas doesn’t know what is going on with his class today. His usually well behaved students are running rampant through the room, and he has to wonder if the lunch lady was giving out free candy again. No matter how many times he tells Anna to sit down, the little redhead just smiles coyly before faking him out and running off again, and Kate won’t stop teasing Raphael about his less than stellar cursive. The only student who is listening is Luke, the troublesome boy who usually ends up in the principal’s office once a week. Everything is backwards, and if the kids don’t calm down he may just yell at them for the first time ever.

“Free time is over!” Cas calls to the group, but it is no use. The kids are untamed and are too caught up in themselves to listen. “I mean it! No recess for a week if you don’t put away the games right now!”

He expects that to get a response, but the kids just keep on playing like he didn’t even speak at all.

“Okay, that is enough!” Cas yells. “Everyone, in your seats immediately or else I am calling Principal Naomi down here!”

Nothing.  _What the hell?_

He can’t take this any longer. He needs to get a moment’s peace before he completely blows up at his kids, so he throws his hands up in exhaustion and walks out of the room.

Right into Dean.

“Ow!” Cas yells as the two collide, and then uses some more colorful language when he falls onto the floor.

“Sorry, sorry!” Dean apologizes as he reaches down to help Cas up. “I didn’t see ya there.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Cas mutters as he rubs his head. “How did you manage to head butt me into the ground?”

“What can I say? I’ve got a talent,” Dean says with that smug smile on his face.

Cas just rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. “What are you doing down here, Dean? Aren’t you supposed to be with your class?”

Dean drops his eyes to the ground and rubs the back of his neck. “I should be...but...uh...I had...somethin’ a little more important to do.”

He raises his eyebrows and gestures for Dean to follow him further down the hall. “What are you talking about?”

Dean turns away from him and paces the length of the floor. He didn’t notice it at first, but there’s a very prominent line of sweat on the back of his shirt and he keeps twisting his hands together.  _What is going on with him?_

“I’m not good at this,” Dean says as he turns back towards Cas. “I suck at feelings and I’m sorry that I didn’t realize it earlier, but...I like you, Cas. A lot.”

“Well, I hope you like me. We’ve been best friends for five years, after all,” Cas responds.

“No, not like that. Cas...I like you, like you.”

The words don’t connect in Cas’s head at first, but once they do he feels like the room is spinning around him. “Dean Winchester, are you implying that you’ve got a crush on me?”

When Dean doesn’t respond, Cas has to lean down to brace himself against his knees. Dean has a crush on him? How? They had been friends for years, and Dean never suggested that he liked him as anything more than a friend. Cas spent the past five years slowly falling in love with a man he could never have, and the thought that Dean could’ve been in the same place all along has him dizzy.

“If you don’t talk soon I think I’m going to combust,” Cas manages to get out after a long stretch of silence between them.

“It’s not just a crush,” Dean whispers. “I’d say it’s evolved into somethin’ a little more personal than that.”

“Then what is it?” Cas asks as he stands up again. “Do you like me? Is this new? What even-”

“Cas, please stop talking,” Dean says as he surges forward, and then the next thing Cas feels is Dean’s lips on his.

His body catches up faster than his mind does. He feels himself respond back immediately, bringing his hands up to run through Dean’s hair as he breathes between kisses. He doesn’t hide the embarrassing groan that comes when his fingers slide over scruff, and he doesn’t even remember that they’re in a public place when he backs Dean into the wall and cups his ass. He feels like a live wire.

Well, that is until his mind does catch up and he breaks them apart.

“Whoa, Dean! What are we doing?” Cas asks breathlessly as he takes a step backwards. “One minute we’re talking about crushes and the next we’re making out? What does that even mean?”

Dean walks forward and brings a hand up to Cas’s face. “It means that I came out here to tell you that I’ve got feelings for you, and maybe I don’t know exactly what they are yet but I wanna find out. Do you?”

Cas feels himself freeze. Dean has feelings for him? His unrequited crush isn’t that at all? It’s all coming at Cas too fast and suddenly it feels like the room is spinning again, but for a much better reason this time.

“I do,” Cas replies after a minute of introspection. “I’d like that very much, Dean.”

He looks over and finds Dean grinning. “Can I take you out for dinner tonight then? Like...on a date?”

Cas just leans forward and pecks a kiss on Dean’s lips. “Yes, Dean. Yes you can.”

Three years later at Dean and Cas’s wedding, Claire, Kevin, and Anna are there with bright smiles on their faces. The newlyweds are sharing their first dance to a violin cover of ‘Carry on Wayward Son’ and there is not a dry eye in the room. Hell, Claire even finds her dad crying next to her mother, probably overjoyed that his brother finally found a partner for life.

“Aren’t you glad that we got them together?” Kevin asks as he takes a sip of his Coke. “They’d probably still be circling one another like wounded puppies otherwise.”

Claire grins as she too take a swig of her pop, then watches as Dean leans in to whisper something in Cas’s ear. The look that appears on Cas’s face can only be described as lovestruck, and she can’t help but feel a little bit responsible for putting it there.

“I for one am glad that I thought of the idea,” Claire chimes in as a new song begins to play. “Trust me guys, you didn’t have to watch them at family functions. Uncle Cas brought Dean ‘as a friend’ but they were so flirty they might as well have been dating. Grilling him about love was totally what pushed him over the edge.”

“Excuse you! I’d like to believe that my plan for the chaos in Mr. Novak’s class is partly responsible too! He wouldn’t have left the room otherwise,” Anna counters.

“Well, no matter who started it, can we agree that Operation ‘Get Mr. Winchester and Mr. Novak Together’ was a success?” Kevin asks.

Claire glances on Dean and Cas. The two of them are still holding one another even though their song ended ages ago, and right when she’s about to look away she catches Dean lean in to leave a long, languid kiss on her uncle’s lips.

“Yeah,” Claire says as she grins at the ground, “it was.”


End file.
